But apparently, it isn’t too uncommon for a wood duck to lay their eggs in strange places. They sometimes lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, and the reason is interesting.

Credit: Laurie Wolf

“It’s not commonly documented, but it certainly happens,” Christian Artuso told National Geographic.

“’You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket. If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased slightly, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.

“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency. So I was happy to see another example of this.”